At present, there is a strong worldwide push toward bringing fiber closer to indi-
vidual homes and businesses. Fiber-to-the-Home/Business (FTTH/B) or close to it
networks are poised to become the next major success story for optical fiber com-
munications. In fact, FTTH connections are currently experiencing double-digit or
even higher growth rates, e.g., in the United States the annual growth rate was 112%
between September 2006 and September 2007, and their presence can add value of
U.S. $4,000–15,000 to the selling price of a home.
We were on the lookout for ice.
I was in a 32 foot sailing yacht with writer and explorer Tristan Gooley, undertaking a
double-handed sail from Scotland through the Faroes up to 66 33 45.7 N and the midnight
sun. Now sailing out of the Arctic Circle we were approaching Iceland from the north, heading
for the Denmark Straits, where ice flowed south. The Admiralty Pilot warned of bergs but the
ice charts we had sailed with were over a week old. We needed an update.
With the rapid expansion of wireless consumer products,there has been a con-
siderable increase in the need for radio-frequency (RF) planning, link plan-
ning, and propagation modeling.A network designer with no RF background
may find himself/herself designing a wireless network. A wide array of RF
planning software packages can provide some support, but there is no substi-
tute for a fundamental understanding of the propagation process and the lim-
itations of the models employed. Blind use of computer-aided design (CAD)
programs with no understanding of the physical fundamentals underlying the
process can be a recipe for disaster. Having witnessed the results of this
approach, I hope to spare others this frustration.
To meet the future demand for huge traffic volume of wireless data service, the research on the fifth generation
(5G) mobile communication systems has been undertaken in recent years. It is expected that the spectral and energy
efficiencies in 5G mobile communication systems should be ten-fold higher than the ones in the fourth generation
(4G) mobile communication systems. Therefore, it is important to further exploit the potential of spatial multiplexing
of multiple antennas. In the last twenty years, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna techniques have been
considered as the key techniques to increase the capacity of wireless communication systems. When a large-scale
antenna array (which is also called massive MIMO) is equipped in a base-station, or a large number of distributed
antennas (which is also called large-scale distributed MIMO) are deployed, the spectral and energy efficiencies can
be further improved by using spatial domain multiple access. This paper provides an overview of massive MIMO
and large-scale distributed MIMO systems, including spectral efficiency analysis, channel state information (CSI)
acquisition, wireless transmission technology, and resource allocation.
Smart antennas involve processing of signals induced on an array of sensors such as
antennas, microphones, and hydrophones. They have applications in the areas of radar,
sonar, medical imaging, and communications.
Five years have passed since the first edition of this book was published.Over the five years,the
world has witnessed a technological revolution headlined by an array of exciting consumer and
industrial products such as the Nintendo Wii, Apple iPod/iPad, sensor-rich smart phones,
phones with cameras,new operating systems for mobile phones and apps,e-books,WiFi,voice-
over-IP calls, social networking, 3D animated movies, and cloud computing, to name the major
ones that affect everyday living
This book is based on a Ph.D. research that has been conducted at the Delft
University of Technology in the Netherlands in collaboration with Dutch Electricity
& Gas Distribution Network Operator, Stedin. This book was written as a result of
wider interest that was shown by different industry groups on this topic after its
public defence. This inspired the author to modify and publish a practical version
of the research for a greater international audience. Therefore, the content of this
book is intended for a double audience, on the one hand for those interested in the
organisational and management aspects of maintenance.